Microsoft Sway is a digital storytelling made simple: Professional presentations, newsletters, and portfolios in minutes.

🔍 What does it do?

Microsoft Sway is a web-based storytelling app that helps you create interactive reports, personal stories, and newsletters. Unlike PowerPoint, which is slide-based, Sway is a scrolling digital canvas. You provide the content (text, images, and videos), and Sway’s built-in design engine handles the layout, ensuring it looks great on any screen- from a desktop to a smartphone.

 

🎓 Why is it useful?

• No Design Skills Required: You focus on the story, Sway focuses on the design. With one click of the “Remix” button, you can instantly change the entire look and feel of your project.

• Accessible by Design: Sways are easy to read. They include an “Accessibility View” that optimizes the screen for high contrast and screen readers, making it inclusive for all learners.

• Modern Newsletters: It is an extremely useful tool for school newsletters in Falkirk. Parents can scroll through updates and watch embedded videos of school life directly on their phones.

• Web-Based Sharing: You don’t “send” a Sway; you share a link. This means you can update the content even after you’ve sent the link, and everyone will see the latest version.

 

⚙️ How does it work?

1. Launch: Access directly at sway.office.com using your Glow login details or via the waffle menu in OneDrive in Glow.

2. Start from Scratch or a Document: Click + New Blank to start fresh, or upload an existing Word or PDF document and watch Sway “transform” it into a web page automatically.

3. The Storyline: Use the “Storyline” to add “Cards.” There are cards for text, images, video, and even “Stacks” (groups of photos that you can tap to flip through).

4. Design & Remix: Switch to the Design tab to see your work. Click Styles and then Remix! to cycle through different fonts, colors, and scroll directions (Vertical or Horizontal).

5. Share: Click the Share button. For school newsletters, ensure you select “Anyone with a link” so parents can view it without needing a Glow login.

 

🚀 Beyond the Basics

• Digital Portfolios: Pupils can use Sway to curate their best work over a term. They can embed audio recordings of them reflecting on their writing alongside photos of their physical work.

• Interactive Reports: Instead of a poster, pupils can create a scrolling report. Use the “Comparison” card to show “Before and After” photos of an experiment using a slider.

• Virtual Trips: Create a Sway about a country or historical period. Embed Google Maps (using an embed code) and YouTube videos to create an immersive research hub for the class.

• For Admin: Create a “Living Document” for staff or pupils. Because it’s a web link, you can update the school calendar or policies in the Sway throughout the year without having to re-send emails.

Microsoft Forms is an easy way to create surveys, quizzes, and polls with built-in Practice Mode and Data Insights.

🔍 What does it do?

Microsoft Forms is a web-based tool for gathering information and assessing learning. It allows you to create interactive quizzes and surveys that work on any device. In a Falkirk classroom, it can be used as a go-to tool for “check-ins” and low-stakes testing providing instant feedback to both the teacher and the pupil.

🎓 Why is it useful?

• Instant Assessment: Create a “Check for Understanding” quiz at the end of a lesson to see exactly which pupils have grasped the concept.

• Low-Stakes Learning (Practice Mode): This new feature allows pupils to try questions multiple times, see correct answers instantly, and receive encouraging feedback, turning a “test” into a learning activity.

• Smart Data Insights: Forms doesn’t just show you “who got what”, it automatically identifies “Hard Questions” where a large percentage of the class struggled, helping you plan what to re-teach.

• Self-Marking: Quizzes can be auto-graded, giving pupils immediate results and saving you hours of manual marking for certain types of assessment.

⚙️ How does it work?

1. Launch: Access directly at forms.office.com using your Glow login details or via the waffle menu in OneDrive in Glow.

2. Create: Click + New Quiz (to add correct answers and points) or + New Form (for surveys).

3. Enable Practice Mode: Go to Settings (…) and toggle on Practice Mode. This allows pupils to see if they are right or wrong immediately after answering each question.

4. Present Mode: Use the Present button in class to show live, anonymous results (like a word cloud or bar chart) as pupils submit their answers in real-time.

5. Review: Click the Responses tab to see a summary of the data and open it in Excel for a detailed breakdown.

🚀 Beyond the Basics

• Practice Mode for self paced learning: Turn any quiz into a revision tool. Pupils get instant feedback and can “try again,” which helps build confidence and independence.

• Branching Logic in Literacy: Use the “Branching” feature to create a digital “Choose Your Own Adventure” story. Depending on the choice a pupil makes, the form sends them to a different page of the narrative.

• Live Data in Science: Open a Form in Present Mode during an experiment. As pupils enter their findings, the charts on your board update live, allowing for an immediate class discussion on the results.

• Accessibility with Immersive Reader: Every Form has Immersive Reader built-in. Pupils can tap the icon next to any question to have it read aloud, translated, or broken into syllables.

 

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$🔗\; Teacher$Quick Links

Microsoft Forms for Education

Microsoft Forms Quick Start Guide